Education: 4 Tips to Become a PowerPoint Expert

PowerPoint has been around for years, and we are now starting to the see the rise of Prezi as another visual aid tool for presentations. Unfortunately, setting up your slideshows can be a bit of a challenge for both you to create and your audience to understand if not done properly. Here are some tips to make your presentations as clear as possible:

Do not duplicate your presentation

Think of your slides as an outline, not as a manuscript you should be reading to the audience. The audience can read what is on the slides, so you should be providing more information orally for them to hear.

Make sure to use large font or good handwriting

While your slides will usually look better when expanded for a large screen, you do not want your audience to be squinting to read. Especially if you are showing handwriting, it should be comfortably visible to someone standing from a distance.

Highlight one idea per slide

Especially when using headings, it can be confusing to fit multiple ideas onto one slide. Instead of trying to fit everything in, create a new slide and allow for some empty space, or silence, on the slide. Again, this helps to keep the focus on you.

Make sure it is an actual aid

Most importantly, with any visual aid you use, it should actually be beneficial to the presentation. You should be able to give your speech without technology because computers do not always work they way we would like, but that also means that all your slides should be supplementary and add something, such as a graph showing relevant data, an important definition, etc.